by Anne Rice
Maybe this is what happens when you love, really love, I thought. People love you in return! I felt so free of hatred and anger suddenly that I shivered, but I implored her with my eyes to speak.
She looked shaken and then she glanced at the Rebbe, and bowed her head and blushed. She was about to cry.
"He had with him her diamond necklace," she said, "the necklace of his brother's daughter, Esther Belkin. He was taking it to his brother."
She began to cry.
"When he had heard of the necklace being stolen," she said, "when he heard this tale, he knew it wasn't true. He had the necklace. Esther Belkin had given it to him for mending." She swallowed her tears and continued. "Rebbe, he didn't want anyone to be angry. He called his brother to tell him. He said his brother was crying. The car came to take him to his brother so that he might restore the necklace to him which had been Esther's, and then his brother wanted Nathan to come with him to Israel that they stand together at the Wailing Wall. Nathan promised me that when he had comforted his brother, he would return. Perhaps, he said, he could bring his brother back home."
"Ah, of course," I said.
"Quiet," said the Rebbe. "Sarah, don't be sorry or sad. Don't worry. I'm not angry that he went with his brother. He went in love, with good intentions."
"He did, Rebbe," she said. "He did."
"Leave this to us."
"I'm so sorry, Rebbe. But he loved his brother and was so stricken with grief for the girl. He said the girl would one day have come to us and would have wanted to be one of us. He was sure of it. He had seen it in her eyes."
"I see, Sarah. Don't think any more about it. Go out now."
She turned her head, still crying, glanced back at me once, and then left the room.
I felt so sorry for her, so very sorry! She knew something was wrong, but she had no idea what was wrong, how bad it was. She was loving by nature. Maybe Nathan was too. Very likely so, as Rachel and Esther had said he was.
"It's just as I thought," I said.
The old man waited on me in silence.
"Gregory used the necklace to lure Nathan to him. Gregory published that stupid story of the stolen necklace so that Nathan would call him, and he could persuade Nathan to meet with him and stay with him. Nathan prepared you for his prolonged absence. Gregory put him up to this. I will do everything in my power to see that Nathan is returned unharmed. I can't stay with you now. Will you give me your blessing, all of you? I won't linger begging for it, but if you want to give it, I will receive it with love in the name of the Lord. My name is Azriel."
They cried out, throwing up their hands and backing away. It was the fear of knowing the name of a spirit, though I hadn't expected such alarm at this point. I put my hands to my temples and thought again, "Yield to me the words! Yield to me the words. I know my name is not evil."
Then I declared, "I was named Azriel by my father when I was circumcised in our own house of prayer at Babylon. We were the last tribes taken hostage out of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar. The name was good enough for God and for the Tribe and for my father! Nabonidus was King and we practiced our faith in peace under his rule. We sang the Lord's Song in that strange land every day."
A great flush of energy passed through me, but again the memory lacked substance, color. I knew only that what I said was true, and that if I could solve this blasted mystery, this horror, then perhaps in time I could recall other things, just as I had recalled this, and all my past would come to me. Not in hatred, but in love. I was now fascinated by love. No doubt of it.
They fell to murmuring, it is his Hebrew name, it is his human name, it is his own name blessed by God, and some arguing that to know my name only gave them power over me and others whispered that I was an angel.
Then with a nod from the Rebbe, they all gave me their blessings. I felt nothing, but at least I didn't dislike them anymore; I loved them and saw them for what they were and feared all the more for Nathan.
"But what is Gregory doing?" the Rebbe whispered, more to himself than to me.
"I don't know," I admitted again. "But Nathan is an identical twin, is he not? And your grandson Gregory would be the Messiah, would he not? He would change the whole world."
The old man was perplexed and horrified.
I asked, "If I need you, for Nathan's sake, for the sake of the love of all God's creatures, will you come?"
"Yes," said the Rebbe.
I was about to walk out of the room. But I decided for obvious reasons that it was best to vanish. I did so slowly so as to amaze them, growing transparent, rising, extending my arms, then vanishing altogether. I don't think they saw the tiny bits of moisture all through the air. They probably only felt the coolness and then the heat when a spirit vanishes.
I left them staring solemnly at the place where I'd stood. I wanted desperately to comfort Sarah, whom I saw crying at the kitchen table, but there was no way, no time.
I went up higher and higher.
"Gregory!" I said, and I set my destination to that place where the Master of the Bones might be--his Temple. To search, as a spirit, for Nathan was impossible. I had never laid eyes on him, caught his scent, seen or touched him or his garments. He might have been sleeping in one of those rooms in the Temple which I roamed, invisibly, the night before. But I had not lingered on faces. There had been hundreds of faces.
Go to Gregory. The danger to Nathan was with his brother, and that was where I had to be now. I had one comforting thought. Whatever was in store for Nathan had probably not transpired yet.
On the other hand, the people in the Temple had been working full speed on the project called the Last Days.
23
A huge mob surrounded the Temple of the Mind. I came down into it invisible, amid the cameras and the radio people and understood that Gregory Belkin was to appear to make a momentous statement at six p.m. or before and that he knew the identity of his enemies and the enemies of the Temple. He intended to name his terrorist enemies and try to prevent their new plan of destruction.
The crowd spilled out, blocking Fifth Avenue, and many of the Minders, virtually pushed away by the press, were in the park praying.
I went up and into the building and found Gregory seated in a huge room with five men, amid the big electric maps and numerous monitors, and he was hard at work going over the final directions. The room itself was soundproof, and before I made myself visible I saw that no camera monitored the room itself. All monitors revealed the outside, and the walls in the rooms didn't have ears either.
As I descended, Gregory spoke:
"Nothing will happen until two hours after I'm declared officially dead--" he said, and these words immediately galvanized me.
I appeared in my full Babylonian robes of blue velvet and gold, and my long hair and beard, and I snatched him up from the chair.
The men raced at me, and I threw them back. Through another door came a small group of heavily armed soldiers. Someone fired a gun. Gregory shouted no. No. This little cadre of ruthless guards surrounded me with powerful modern guns, the kind that fix you in a beam of light before they shoot you. All these men had the look of killers.
As for those who had been gathered at the table, they were the milder sort, though equally as serious, that included the Mastermind Doctor, and they reeked of resentment and suspicion and absolute desperation that I had interrupted them.
"No, be calm," said Gregory. "This is inevitable and this will not stop us. This is an angel sent from God to help us."
"Is that so?" I said. "What have you done with your brother? If you don't talk the truth to me, I'll tear you limb from limb and all these men will die with you. That's the only alternative you give me. What is this about your official death? Talk now, or I will destroy."
Gregory sighed and then he told the other men to go. "Everything will go as planned; only this angel needs to know the scope of his power," he said. "Go on, man your desks in the building and see that my brother is comfortable an
d not afraid. Everything will be glorious. We are in the time of miracles. This creature you see here is a miracle from God. Say nothing to anyone."
The men at the table left with amazing speed, but the soldiers took a little more firm persuading from him that he knew what he was doing.
I flung him back down in his chair.
"You lying monster," I said. "How could you tell the world I killed your wife and your daughter? Tell me now where Nathan is, tell me now what you mean to do."
I scanned the monitors all along the tops of the walls. They covered entryways, the lobby, elevators that were not in operation. I could see nothing but empty space in most. And guards passing.
The maps were dazzling and filled with pulsing neon colors, countries done in scarlet and yellow and rivers drawn in light like lightning. But there was no time to admire these things.
"Haven't you guessed it, clever spirit?" he said. He smiled up at me. "How glad I am to see you. What took you so long? I need you, and time is running out."
"I know you're going to do something with your brother," I said, "put him in your place to be killed, so that you can rise from the dead! That much is easy to figure and six is the hour you've marked for it. Six or before, what does that mean? I want your brother now, safe and in my arms to be taken back to his people."
"No, you don't, Azriel," he said with great reasonableness, his confidence flaring up in him like an unquenchable fire. "Sit down and let me tell you what is to happen. You cannot imagine the beauty of it, and Nathan will suffer no pain. He is sedated and hardly knows what will happen to him."
"I'm sure he is!" I said with great contempt, and a memory came back to me of people giving me something to drink, and saying, "You will not suffer." They were painting gold on my skin.
"If you kill me," Gregory said, "you will change nothing. The plan goes into operation after my death. If you want me to die before six o'clock then you will simply move up the time of the Last Days. Everything is set into motion. Only I can stop it. You'd be a fool to kill me." He gestured for me to sit down.
"This room is soundproof, it has no security monitor," he said. "What we say here is private, utterly. And I want your attention and your sympathy."
"The soldiers?"
"I pressed a button, here under the table. They won't come in again, but what I tell you must be secret, secret from all the world. You must be one of us when we leave this room. We have to leave it together."
"You're dreaming."
"No. You lack vision, Spirit, you always have. You've spent too many centuries a slave. Now, only in my time, have you known your full strength. Admit it. The doctors found living seed in my wife. You've lost your glaze-eyed confused look, Spirit. My wife taught you how to be a man?"
I said nothing. But I did have a strong sense of something--that I couldn't simply solve this by chopping him up like the Gordian knot.
"Right you are!" he said. "Sit down, and listen to me." I took the first chair to his left.
He picked up a small multi-buttoned remote control device. I placed my hand on it.
"It controls the monitors, nothing more. Most are security. Only two have film in them. Look directly up there, over the central map."
At once two of the screens began to fill with still shots--frozen for about two seconds each--of people who were starving, or the dead, battlefields, bombed-out buildings, trash heaps. I recognized that these photos were a steady panorama from all over the world. I could see the Mayan temples in one picture of gathered villagers. In another I saw ruins I knew to be in Cambodia.
He watched these almost serenely, as if he'd forgotten my presence or took me utterly for granted.
"Assure me nothing will happen to Nathan," I said, "as we talk."
"I assure you," he said. "Nothing will happen, until six o'clock and even then it depends on my signal. But I should let you know, angelic one, you have no bargaining power."
"Oh?"
As he turned and smiled graciously at me, he was now preening and full of happiness.
"I've waited so long for this to come," he said, "and to think that you arrived in the midst of it. I do think God sent you as an answer to the sacrifice of Esther. I myself didn't see the symmetry of it or the genius until later. I offered up Esther, whom I loved, truly loved, and you came through the break from the Heavens." He seemed perfectly sincere.
"I have not been in Heaven," I said. "Where is Nathan?"
"First," he said, "let us think intelligently. If you should lose your angelic temper and kill me, you'll only trigger the plan automatically. If you destroy this building you'll trigger the plan automatically. If you want any chance of understanding, acceptance, or modification, you need me. And hear me out."
"All right," I said. "But you do plan to kill Nathan at six o'clock. You admit it. And you could do it before. That's why you put him in the hospital under your name, to create DNA evidence and dental evidence to identify Nathan as you, so that your death would be certified, didn't you?"
He didn't seem at all happy to hear this much figuring.
"That's a crude version of what I accomplished," he said. "But look, the world is at stake, Azriel, the world itself. Dear God, you must be my Divine Witness."
"Don't get romantic, Gregory, tell me the plan. Somewhere else you have DNA documents that will be used to cleverly replace Nathan's set, and these documents will confirm you when you have risen. You have many people involved in erasing and moving data."
"I'm beginning to love your intelligence," he said. "Now really use it. This is for the world itself! It's for that that we do what we do. And you cannot prevent what will happen, and you must keep it in your mind that when the Last Days come, and they will begin sometime before midnight this night, you will need me. You will need me desperately, just as everyone alive and meant to live will need me. Otherwise only disaster can follow upon disaster."
"Okay, what is this Last Days? What's to happen? You're going to have him assassinated. Then what? Appear to rise from the dead?"
"In three days," he said. "Isn't that the way the other Messiah did it?" He was cooler.
Three days. Blurry horrid images filled with--lions, a loathsome swarm of bees, dancing. I shivered and fought it off. I saw the cross of Christ. I saw the risen Christ in paintings old and new. I heard Christian words in Greek and Latin.
"I'm eager to have you understand this," he said. "You know, it's occurred to me several times that you are the only one who will fully appreciate this."
"And why's that?"
"Azriel, nobody else alive has my courage. No one. It takes courage to kill. You know it does. You know time and the world, and have probably witnessed war, starvation, injustice. But first, allow me to caution you. If you don't hear me out, if you decide that my death is appropriate and that you don't care what happens to the world, there's the question of the Bones."
"Yes?"
"They are in a kiln in this building, and a word from me will roast them and melt them into running liquid. Oh, and I should tell you the results of our tests on them, shouldn't I?"
"If you want to waste the time. I'd rather hear about the Last Days."
"Don't you want to know what's inside your bones?"
"I know. My bones."
He shook his head and smiled. "No more," he said. "The human bone is almost entirely devoured by the metals in which it was encased. There is very little if anything left. Which means I think that as soon as the metal is heated it will easily incinerate and obliterate any trace of the human remaining."
"That's what it means to you?" I smiled. "How amusing. Your test results have an entirely different meaning for me. Did you find enough there to do your DNA magic?"
He shook his head. "There's almost nothing left."
"That's good news. But go on."
He studied me most intensely. He reached out to take my hand, which I more or less allowed. All his charm was in play now, and his eyes had the depth of greatness, and the sin
cerity of greatness. Very alluring. Rachel had warned me of this.
But I loathed him. For Esther and Nathan alone, as if all the world didn't matter, or as if to mourn them was to mourn all injustice.
"Azriel, this is a dream of unparalleled greatness. It has harshness in it and death, but so did the conquests of Alexander. So did the conquests of Constantine. You know they did. You know the land of Egypt lived in peace for two thousand years because of harshness and the willingness to kill. You know or remember those long times of peace. The Peace of Alexander, and after him the Pax Romana."
"Tell me the plan."
He pointed to the big map on the wall, the map of the world that was filled with pinpoints of light. The pinpoints were red and blue mostly, though some were yellow. They were in stark contrast to the lights of the map, but I saw now much drawing and marking on the map. Much detail.
"Those are my headquarters throughout the world," he said. "Those are my Temples, my so-called resorts, my so-called business offices. Airports. Islands."
"God, why does ambition come to such a man?" I said. "Think of the good you could do, you blithering moral idiot!"
He laughed sincerely and like a child. "But that's just it, my tactless and impulsive one, I am a moral genius." He pointed to the maps:
"They are ready within two hours of confirmation of my death to destroy two-thirds of the world's population completely. Now, before you object, let me explain that this will be done by a filovirus perfected here by us which is already in place in those various temples. Don't interrupt."
He raised his hand and went on.
"It is a virus which kills within five minutes or less; it is airborne only as long as its host breathes, which is no more than five minutes; its first immediate action is to fog the brain and to fill the victim with a feeling of peace and ecstasy."
He smiled gently, his eyes glazed suddenly, as though he were listening to grand and majestic music.
"No one will suffer, Azriel, at least not more than a few moments. Oh, it is such perfection compared to the hideous, bumbling stupidity of Hitler when he bludgeoned, shot, and tormented the Jews. What a crude, cruel monster he was. A digger of graves, a ragman, a fiend who tinkered with the gold in the mouths of his millions of victims." He shrugged. "Ah, maybe it simply wasn't the time. We didn't have the technology."